SCIENCE NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1510, 7 February 1901, Page 15

SCIENCE NOTES.

MELTED WOOD. ■ .“’Molten wood’' is a new invention, doe to M. De Gall, inspector of forests at- Lemur, France. By means of dry distillation and high pressure the escape - of developing gases is prevented, thereby reducing the wood to a “molten” condition! After cooling off, the mass 'assumes the character of coal, yet without showing a trace of the organic structure or that mineral. This new body is hard, but can be shaped and polished at will, .and is impervious to ■Water and! acids. Great results are expected' from this new discovery, which appears to produce a sort of artificial lanthraoite jet. We should, however, expect the new substance to be somewhat inflammable. . . . AGE OF THE- “BIG TREES.” • The extreme age attained by the big -tree of California is still, an unsettled 1 question. Statements on the subject . vary considerably, some appearing to be exaggeration. One great difficulty, however,, in settling the question’ of age, at least for existing trees, is the lack of a proper number of trunk sections on, wlubh to .■count the rings, of annual growth. -Ring countings from prostrate and burned or decayed trunks and sections of trees felled for other purposes "than ring counting, have already furnished the basis of the age estimates made kb far, and from these countings age 'estimates have been made from trees of bth.br sizes which could not, of course, 'be'Cut down. The accepted opinion is that the average rate of growth is one ' inch in diameter for every 12 years, ■which would make a tree 25ft through 8600 years old. One of the largest cut down was found to measure 35ft in •'diameter near the base.

' . life-saving net. ' / A new life-saving net has been adopt'."ed„by the New York Fire Department, i'lt. consists of a circular gas pipe frame, 'twhibh shuts up like an old-fashioned ' purse, and which, when opened has a diameter of 18 feet. A canvas netis attached to the frame, and the canvas is lined With a layer of wadding two inches thick.. The shock to a person striking the net is reduced to a minimum, and • rfche difficulty in holding it is lessened by means of strong springs by which the canvas is attached to the frame. They .take up the force of the impact. A trial was recently held, and a fireman jumped from a height of four storeys into the net, and the shock of the impact was •rtrifling. The men who were, holding the -met felt practically no strain. 4"THE SIMPLON TUNNEL. The penetration in the Simplon tunnel at the end-of June had reached 18,456 -,;feet, and the entirely completed ..portion was 10,500 feet long. The tem_ ..perature of the rock at a distance of ,7194 feet from the southern end was .92deg. F., while 10, 464 feet from the northern end it was 80deg. It is calAculated -that at the centre of the tunnel ' the Abeat due: to the thickness of the 'superincumbent rock will be 109 deg., which, would be to the workmen but for abundant ventilation with 'Cooler air. At the end of August the ..aggregate penetration was 20,231 feet. 'The number of workmen employed is 3000 on the Swiss and 2qoo on the oltalian, side. . ,-: ; - •=■ ■ ; ■ 'A. STRONG BREEZE, ; w -Chickens are nOw plucked, in a wholesome manner by the use of pneumatic . ■machinery. There is a receptacle in "•which : the fowl is placed after being killed, and into this are turned several •cross currents -of air from electrical fans •'revolving at the rate of 5000 turns per .sminute.- In the twinkling of an eye the third is- stripped of its feathers, even to . the tinitest particles of down, and the machine is ready for another. Needless ,to say, remarks! “Science Siftings,” the -machine it at work in America.

STONE IMPLEMENTS OF THE GOLD ■f-,'-- COAST.

In the current number of “Knowprehistoric stone implements of Western Africa, by Lindsay W. Bristowe and H. P. .Fitzgerald Merriott, F.R.G.S. ‘‘Comparatively little is known of prehistoric stone implements from Western - Africa. . . The collection in the writer’s possession, which contains 20 . specimens, are all, with the exception of one,’ neolithis, and, although diligent , search was made, no chipped specimens ... could be procured; as Burton remarks, .they are comparatively unknown. Man, ...though very ancient in other tropical or ’. subtropical parts of Africa, in these dis- ’ tricts of the West Coast probably appeared at a later period, owing to the swampy vegetation, disagreeable climate, and presumable volcanic state of other portions. Moreover, here mankind does not seem to have developed ‘ a want for stone implements, whilst in i other parts of the world’ he had long ago passed the Palaeolithic stage, for all those celts as yet found are Highly finish- , :ed, and there are none there that show ..a preparatory period of evolution. The perfection of. these instruments goes far

to prove that they were imported by migrating or conquering races, and that the ancient possessors of the low-lying forest coasts of West Africa, if they ever existed, had never even arrived at a Stone Age of any sort, being content to subsist on what could be obtained by wooden instruments, and on fruits and roots, tom by the nands from, their place of'growth.” COAL IN CHINA. Professor Drake estimates that within the 150 square miles around Tsechau there are about three thousand million metric tons of coal, and! it must be remembered that this ai'ea is only a little off the ragged edge of the great coalfields of Shan-si. Most of Shan-si has been found underlaid by large coal beds. Richthofen estimates that the anthracite coal alone of Shau-si amounts to 630,000 million tons, and that- the coal area is greater than that of Pennsylvania. PRIZES TO ORIGINATORS. It is reported (says -“Nature”) that M. Daniel Osiris, a Greek millionaire residing in Paris, has instituted a prize on the lines laid down by Mr Nobel, though his offer is for Frenchmen only, except in a Paris Exposition year, when it becomes universal. He has set aside a sum-to be awarded e©ary three years in perpetuity to the discoverer, inventor or producer of the most noteworthy idea or object for the benefit of humanity. The prize is to be never less than 100,000 francs, and may be double that sum. T'RE' “OLDEST INHABITANT.”

At the London Institution Prof. G. A. J. Cole gave a lecture on “The Earth’s Earliest Inhabitants.” The earth having been inUaoited by living creatures long before man came upon the scene, it was to those earlier inhabitants that his lecture referred. Nobody knew exactly what were the earth’s earliest in_ habitants , but we were feeling our way back towards them. They went far beyond the pyramids and the Riddle of the Sphinx. A number of eras, or systems have been established reaching back to the Cambrian, beyond which little or nothing has been ascertained with any degree of certainty. The oldest known inhabitant of the Cambrian Era and _of the Globe was the Oleneilus, representing with its latter developments forms nearly allied to that of the King Crab. Markings were found on the slates showing the"remains of what were believed to have been jelly-fish and coral cups. No fishes, nor a. single vertebrae animal, had been found beyond that depth. It was thought possible that in the crystalline rocks of Norway still older forms than those of the Cambrian system might yet be discovered. It was a question, however, whether we should ever .find elder inhabitants of the earth than the jelly fish. At present the Oleneilus was the oldest known representative of the lords of creation in early Cambrian times. Having traced the progress of forms of life from that up to man, as he now existed, Prof. Cole said he should be sorry to think that even that as to be the end of it, and suggested whether we were not in the presence cf something far greater. HAMMOCK VERSUS BED. A writer in “Science Siftings” insists that a hammock is much preferable as a sleeping place to the ordinary fixed bed. The hammock yields more freely to the movements of the sleeper, and adjusts itself more easily and pleasantly to the different positions assumed in the course of the night, particularly by the somewhat restless sleeper. “There is another reason why a hammock is to be preferred, inasmuch as it does not tend to harbour disease germs, as the feather beds, mattresses, etc., used in the ordinary way so often do. In our hammock we roll ourselves up in our blankets, and that makes the ideal hygienic _way of passing the night. In winter time we are as warm as we please, yet subject to a better ventilation of the body than is obtained than when lying upon a heavy bed. And in summertime it is most delightsome—the hammock is —as there is practically no limit to the extent to which free ventilation of the whole surface of. . the . frame .can be secured.”,' V. ~V. : A’. ' A ' WHY WE ARE RIGHT-HANDED. “I venture,” says Sir James Sawyer, in a medical journal, “to suggest that the normal position of the heart is the efficient cause, or,- at least,/ a chief cause, of the prevalent right-handedness. In the earlier of the human race, nan was a fighting animal, a people fighting hand to hand. In such fighting a weapon suich as a stick or a sword was used. It is an advantage in ,so fighting bo fight with a stick or with a sword which can be used by one arm and hand only; the other arm and hand' being used for balance, for defensive covering, or for offensive seizing. The right hand is preferred for the wielding of the stick or sword, so that the heart may be kept aivay as far as possible from the assault of an adversary. So arising righthandedness would thence be transmitted by imitation. It will be found in practice that an excellent way for the acauirements of ambi-dexterity or ‘both-hand-edness’ is in the learning of the lefthand handwriting. Ambidexterity would

tend to more equal, and therefore the healthy, use of the two sides of the brain. A “SNEEZING PLANT." There is a vine plant, a native of tropical regions, which bears transplanting and will grow indoors, but there is one thing which it cannot stand, and that is dust-. When the breathing pores become choked by dust, the gases accumulate within the leaf for a time, and then are forcibly expelled in an audible paroxysm of coughing and sneezing which makes the leaf tremble violently. At the same, time, the whole plant becomes red in the face, so to speak, through the sinking in of the green chlorophyll grains and the appearance of particles of red colouring matter on the surface. The Eutada is sometimes cultivated as a house plant. Sweeping the room is very apt to set the poor plant a coughing, to the intense astonishment of persons who are unfamiliar with its peculiarities. AN ANCIENT LETTER-BAG. The great collection of earthem tablets found at El Amarna serves to give an idea of the postal service between Egppt and Babylon as it existed 34 centuries ago. The dates of these tablets is between 1500 and 1400 b.c. Most o t them are reports from Egyptian officials in the provinces and in foreign lands, and are addressed to Pharaoh. These clay tablets are no bulkier than modern official letters. In many cases the tablet was enclosed in an earthern vessel or envelope, which was inscribed with the address and a summary of the contents of the letter. We may assume that- these clay letters were treated much the same as modern mails are. They were probably carried in bags. Excellent P’ost roads connected Egypt with every part of Western Asia, and there were post and relay stations for the king’s messengers, who probably also forwarded private letters.